Asustek Computer Inc (華碩) yesterday reported a 235 percent quarterly surge in its unaudited standalone profit for last quarter, while revenue increased 24 percent on a quarterly basis, thanks to strong sales in Europe and the Asia-Pacific.
The unaudited profit of NT$5.63 billion (US$184.6 million) for Asustek’s brand-name business translated into earnings per share of NT$7.6 for last quarter, it said.
Third-quarter revenue reached NT$88.47 billion — better than its guidance of a 20 percent increase from NT$71 billion in the second quarter, it said.
Gross margin improved from 13.8 percent in the second quarter to 15.3 percent, aided by new product launches and a better product mix, Asustek chief financial officer Nick Wu (吳長榮) told investors through an online conference.
Operating margin also rose from 1.4 percent to 4.9 percent on the back of bulk shipments leading to economies of scale, Wu said.
For this quarter, the company expects its PC sales to be flat or decline by up to 5 percent sequentially and PC peripheral products sales to drop by 5 percent as the US-China trade dispute remains unresolved, Wu said.
Intel Corp’s central processing unit (CPU) shortage is also continuing to hurt, he said.
PC sales made up 71 percent of overall revenue and peripherals contributed 29 percent, the company said.
“We expect Intel’s CPU shortage to be resolved by the first quarter next year... but in any case we have found other alternatives and solutions,” such as Advanced Micro Devices Inc’s (AMD) chips, Asustek co-chief executive Samson Hu (胡書賓) said, suggesting that Asustek might further increase the use of AMD chips next year.
As the US-China trade spat drags on, the company has prepped a relocation site in Taiwan as it ships about 20 percent of its PCs to the US, and it is reducing its inventory in China, Hu said.
The company’s mobile phone business saw net losses widen from NT$1.09 billion in the second quarter to NT$1.78 billion last quarter, but co-chief executive S.Y. Hsu (許先越) said the losses were acceptable.
“When we first launched our gaming ROG phone, we knew it was not going to be profitable immediately... We have set a goal of turning the mobile phone business around in three years,” he said.
Asustek has raised the pricing of its mobile phones, and its inventory of old models should be depleted by the second quarter of next year at the latest as sales in Brazil have been slower than expected, Hu said.
As for gaming PCs, which last quarter posted a 17 percent year-on-year increase, Hu said sales could grow by 15 to 20 percent next year as the company plans to launch new products in May and June.
SECOND-RATE: Models distilled from US products do not perform the same as the original and undo measures that ensure the systems are neutral, the US’ cable said The US Department of State has ordered a global push to bring attention to what it said are widespread efforts by Chinese companies, including artificial intelligence (AI) start-up DeepSeek (深度求索), to steal intellectual property from US AI labs, according to a diplomatic cable. The cable, dated Friday and sent to diplomatic and consular posts around the world, instructs diplomatic staff to speak to their foreign counterparts about “concerns over adversaries’ extraction and distillation of US AI models.” Distillation is the process of training smaller AI models using output from larger, more expensive ones to lower the costs of training a powerful new
Singapore-based ride-hailing and delivery giant Grab Holdings’ planned acquisition of Foodpanda’s Taiwan operations has yet to enter the formal review stage, as regulators await supplementary documents, the Fair Trade Commission (FTC) said yesterday. Acting FTC Chairman Chen Chih-min (陳志民) told the legislature’s Economics Committee that although Grab submitted its application on March 27, the case has not been officially accepted because required materials remain incomplete. Once the filing is finalized, the FTC would launch a formal probe into the deal, focusing on issues such as cross-shareholding and potential restrictions on market competition, Chen told lawmakers. Grab last month announced that it would acquire
The artificial intelligence (AI) boom has triggered a seismic reshuffling of global equity markets, with Taiwan and South Korea muscling past European nations one by one. With its stock market now valued at nearly US$4.3 trillion, Taiwan surpassed the UK, Europe’s biggest market, earlier this month, data compiled by Bloomberg showed. South Korea is about US$140 billion away from doing the same. The tech-heavy Asian markets have shot past Germany and France in the past seven months. The shift is largely down to massive gains in shares of three companies that provide essential hardware for AI: Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電),
Shares of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) have repeatedly hit new highs, but an equity analyst said the stock’s valuation remains within a reasonable range and any pullback would likely be technical. The contract chipmaker’s historical price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio has ranged between 20 and 30, Cathay Futures Consultant Co (國泰證期) analyst Tsai Ming-han (蔡明翰) told Central News Agency. With market consensus projecting that TSMC would post earnings per share of about NT$100 (US$3.17) this year, supported by strong global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) applications, and the stock currently trading at a P/E ratio of below 25, Tsai said the valuation
RSS